Site Navigation

Site Mobile Navigation

The Sounds of Being Scared Senseless

FOR ANYONE WHO HAS turned on the kitchen light and heard the skittering sound of cockroaches in retreat, the sounds of ''Mimic,'' the contemporary Gothic horror film that opened last weekend, will be anything but comforting. But ''Mimic,'' which imagines a super-breed of predator insects, is meant to sound as scary as it looks.

From its unsettling opening scene, in which a team of scientists tour a hospital ward filled with wheezing children, ''Mimic'' is layered with the sounds of unnatural breathing. Though the film is set in a dark, desolate, rain-swept New York City of the near future, the gloomy, cavernous locations convey only half the setting. The soundtrack is filled with everything from an actor's tense intake of breath to the regular hum of a respirator machine, to the excited screeches of a warrior bug. Even in the film's quieter moments, the rooms themselves seem to breathe.

The movie's director, Guillermo Del Toro, who first came to the attention of American moviegoers in 1992 with the contemporary vampire tale ''Cronos,'' takes an unusual interest in his films' sound design. A bearlike 33-year-old former actor from Guadalajara, Mexico, he can use his own dexterous voice to create a cacophony of sounds (insects, animals, machines, inclement weather) that are amusing or unnerving by turns.

Mira Sorvino, who won an Oscar for her performance in ''Mighty Aphrodite,'' is another vocal chameleon. In ''Mimic,'' she plays Susan Tyler, an entomologist who unwittingly creates a mutant insect species that feeds on human prey. The actress, who has seen the film ''five or six times'' with audiences, said that she had noticed a new layer of sound with each viewing.

That's precisely the sort of effect Mr. Del Toro hoped for. ''Most people think everything in movies is the image,'' he said, ''but movies are audiovisual: you have to create an aural landscape. Sound has to be as compelling, or more compelling, than what you see on screen.''

This is particularly important in the horror, science-fiction and suspense genres, the director added. Audiences want to be surprised, and any obvious aural clues -- a pounding heartbeat during a tense scene, for example -- spoil the fun. ''We wanted the sound design of 'Mimic' to be disturbing,'' he explained. ''If anyone covers their eyes to get away from the images on the screen, we want to still get them with the sound. If you walk into a room and it's breathing at you, you know that's not good. And the creatures had to sound so unique and scary, when they are communicating with each other, that you want to wash them off your body.''

Long before the genetically engineered superbugs (called mimics) could make an audience's skin crawl, the screenplay (by Mr. Del Toro and Matthew Robbins) described the creatures' approach as a mere ''clickety-clack.'' The director asked the sound designers Randy Thom and Steve Boeddeker to come up with the aural equivalent of a bug infestation. (About halfway through post-production, when Mr. Thom and Mr. Boeddeker had to move to a new assignment, on the film ''Contact,'' and Robert Shoup finished up the design duties.)

MR. THOM, WHOSE credits also include ''The Right Stuff'' and ''Species,'' headed the film's 62-member team at Skywalker Sound in Marin County, Calif., and he found Mr. Del Toro's interest in sound refreshing.

''Typically, sound design doesn't have an effect on creative decisions early on,'' said Mr. Thom. ''Too often, sound and the musical score acts as a pretty ribbon tied around the outside of a predetermined package. But 'Mimic' was shot with a lot of darkness and ambiguity, so it allowed sound to play a role in the storytelling. We could take liberties, and the audience doesn't know its strings are being pulled.''

To insure a fresh approach, Mr. Thom and his colleagues avoided watching films with insect monsters, he said. They also avoided using recorded animal sounds, a technique that Mr. Thom says is overused in monster films. ''Guillermo suggested that the mimics have a ceramic sound, so we collected seashells, some of them very large, and rubbed them against each other,'' he said. ''The sound is amazingly like a human voice.''

The eerie, skittering sound of mimics on the move came from dried crab shells and shrimp husks, scraped across various surfaces. Since much of the film is set underground, amid the tunnels of a disused subway line, Mr. Thom recorded subway trains and sirens, and added a low-frequency rumble for certain scenes. The satisfying squish of a baby mimic being crushed beneath someone's heel came from crushing watermelons and eggs against the floor. ''Fresh produce is best,'' said Mr. Thom. ''If only to spare ourselves the smell.''

He won't reveal how he created the sound of the mimic's squashed entrails. ''Let's just say it's a skin-care product plus mystery elements,'' he said.

''Mimic'' uses as many as six layers of sound for atmospheric effect. ''It's fun to fabricate sounds for the things you don't see,'' Mr. Thom said. ''All the dark, suggestive sounds of sinister things happening just out of frame: trains rumbling above, pipes gurgling, water dripping, like you are on the inside of the animal.''

Then, of course, there is the sound of breathing: Mr. Del Toro requested a recording session just for the actors' breathing. He calls the respiration of Ms. Sorvino's co-star Charles Dutton ''pure poetry.'' The director and Mr. Thom contributed additional gasps, shrieks and whispers.

Mr. Shoup, who joined the ''Mimic'' team relatively late, after Mr. Thom's temporary sound mix was done, supervised changes and modifications requested by the director. ''He's more involved than most directors, which made it hard,'' he said of Mr. Del Toro, ''but it made the movie better.'' Certain suggestions from Mr. Del Toro -- his idea that a mimic sound like ''a guy in a hockey suit with a lobster in each hand'' -- were particularly memorable.

On the set, Mr. Del Toro was equally explicit when it came to sound. Ms. Sorvino recalled that during a scene in which she was menaced by unseen predators, he instructed crew members to bang on the walls with pipes and sticks to make her jump in fear.

''I had no idea where the threat was coming from, so I'd whirl around to face the sounds,'' said Ms. Sorvino. ''Where we were filming, the chambers echoed and the sounds were really haunting and creepy, and that ambience helped. But seeing the movie in a theater, it's a complete atmospheric invasion. It puts you in the middle of things and doesn't leave you alone.''

We are continually improving the quality of our text archives. Please send feedback, error reports,
and suggestions to archive_feedback@nytimes.com.

A version of this article appears in print on August 31, 1997, on Page 2002018 of the National edition with the headline: The Sounds of Being Scared Senseless. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe